Digital Declutter: The Crucial Philosophy Nobody Ever Taught You

I’ve been hearing a lot of people complain about being stressed during WFH—there’s a lot of work that has to be done throughout the day with almost no downtime. Companies that have been forced to go remote are doing a poor job—the chat is on throughout the day and there’s tonnes of meeting scheduled. It’s natural that this constant communication has decreased productivity.

But as much as I would love to talk about office productivity, it isn’t today’s topic. In fact, it’s better than that. It’s about the broader ideas—the downsides of constant connection, the problem with lack of solitude to think and contemplate, the importance of planned leisure, and on the role of offline communities in our well being. These past few weeks have given me the opportunity to think deeply about it.

Unfortunately when I started putting my thoughts together it started becoming incredibly long. So I’ve broken down the whole essay into two parts: Digital Declutter and Living Deliberately. This is the first part.

💡 Little Bits of Wisdom (LBW)

Forgiveness is a skill. It can be learnt, practised, and mastered.

Forgiveness is correlated with all sorts of great things such as better relationships, less anxiety and depression, greater mental security and confidence, and most importantly being marginally less of a despicable person.

The Illusion of Certainty — “The newspapers are full of stories about how small groups of engineers from Formula 1 teams have been able to design, prototype and manufacture essential health equipment incredibly quickly. So why aren’t organisations allowed to perform such super-human feats of brilliance the rest of the time?”

Why Colombians Are Finally Deleting Gangsters From Their Speed Dial — “For years, Colombians from across the country who wanted to resolve conflicts have often gone to the heads of armed groups or local Mafia organisations or even formed private armies to take care of problems. In some cases, such as in San Javier, the government simply wasn’t available. In other places, the government was seen as ineffective, corrupt and untrustworthy.”

Why You’re Not One of the World’s Great Investors — “There is an unhealthy tendency among us to look at the most successful traders and investors with envy. The desire to imitate those accomplishments is powerful, compelling – not to mention dangerous. Yet these are one-of-a-kind experts with unique skill sets, deep insights and decades of experience that make them inimitable.”

China’s Blunders in Wuhan Should Settle The Debate About Democracy And Economic Progress — “If China had been able to nip COVID-19 in the bud and contain it in Wuhan, the world would not have been going through a pandemic and its consequent recession. So, it is important to note the mistakes China made in its initial response to the novel coronavirus outbreak, and how it could have been averted. These mistakes are by now well known, but bear repetition.”

The list of all the articles I’ve written can be found here. And the past three editions of Sunday Wisdom are here: 35, 34, and 33.

Beauty in Ugly Times — “I read Lolita and all my artist friends are depressed. How to be creative when the world falls apart?”

🤔 Worth Thinking About

He who jumps into the void owes no explanation to those who stand and watch.

— Jean-Luc Godard

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